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Homosexual Foster Parent Sets Off a Debate in Texas

When Rebecca Bledsoe, a Texas child welfare supervisor, ordered the emergency removal of a baby boy from his foster parent, her rationale was straightforward: ''We don't ordinarily license persons when we know them to be involved in any kind of crime on an ongoing basis.''

The 3-month-old boy was in the care of a woman whose live-in lover, Mrs. Bledsoe learned this past summer, was another woman.

Thus began an unusual, one-woman crusade against homosexual parenting, one that has put Mrs. Bledsoe at the center of a controversy that has spotlighted a 118-year-old state statute that makes homosexual activity a crime.

Twenty states have ''anti-sodomy'' statutes, with Texas and five others specifically defining acts between members of the same sex as criminal sodomy. Though rarely enforced and declared unconstitutional in several states, the laws remain on the books.

Mrs. Bledsoe has added a different wrinkle to the issue by arguing that because homosexual acts are a crime in Texas, those who engage in them should not be considered fit to serve as foster or adoptive parents.

Mrs. Bledsoe also said that foster children placed with gay or lesbian couples do not have a parental ''role model'' of one sex or the other.

Her stance has led to a rebuke from the state's Department of Protective and Regulatory Services, which quickly overruled her decision to take the boy away from a Dallas-area woman who had disclosed her lesbian relationship to a state caseworker. And earlier this month, the department took another step against Mrs. Bledsoe, a 10-year veteran whose job evaluations had been exemplary: it demoted her to caseworker, though she retains her $35,000-a-year supervisor's salary.

Mrs. Bledsoe has counterattacked with a labor grievance in which she argues that she is being punished because she ''failed to exhibit respect to the foster mother who admits to criminal sexual conduct.''

Mrs. Bledsoe, whose work had never before stirred controversy, has become a heroine in some conservative quarters, and the target of withering criticism from gay rights advocates who accuse her of fostering discrimination against homosexuals.

Some members of the State Legislature have vowed to renew efforts to take the sodomy statute off the books, while others have suggested that Texas should make it illegal for homosexuals to adopt children. Only New Hampshire and Florida have such laws, said Ruth Harlow, managing attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a homosexual rights advocacy group based in Washington.

The baby boy at the center of the case was born in April to a woman with a history of drug-related crime. She is now in jail on prostitution charges. The boy remains under the care of the Dallas-area woman, a former child-care worker in her 30's who is registered as a foster parent and who, with her lesbian lover, has applied to adopt the boy.

However, there are indications that the boy may soon be moved, not because the women have been found unfit, but because a Chicago couple -- the boy's uncle and aunt -- have said they are willing to take him in.

The Chicago couple, located with the help of a conservative legal group that supports Mrs. Bledsoe, are already caring for 6-year-old twin girls who were born to the same mother as the infant boy. Under state guidelines, their blood relation to the baby makes them potentially more suitable parents, as does their race: they, like the baby, are black, while the lesbians are white.

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The lesbian couple have not been publicly identified and have declined to speak out on the matter, but the case has forced state officials to acknowledge that some homosexuals are certified as foster parents.

The officials say that although placement guidelines give preference to a ''traditional family'' that includes a husband and wife, many gay men and lesbians are serving a need by taking in babies, especially those born with the AIDS virus, whom the officials describe as difficult to place.

''Sexual orientation is not mentioned at all in our policy,'' said Linda Edwards, a spokeswoman for the child welfare department in Austin. ''If I were to summarize our policy, our agency looks for potential parents who are capable of nurturing, protecting and parenting a child who has been abused or neglected.''

Technically, same-sex couples, as well as unmarried heterosexual couples, cannot jointly register as foster parents; as a matter of practice, though, both partners provide care, even if only one is registered.

There are no statistics on how many lesbians or gay men are serving as foster parents or adoptive parents. But the numbers have clearly grown over the past decade, said Joe Kroll, executive director of the North American Council on Adoptable Children, based in St. Paul, Minn., a coalition of adoption professionals and parental support groups that promote adoption.

In many ways, Mr. Kroll said, the spread of AIDS may have increased social acceptance of the practice: many gay couples go out of their way to adopt HIV-positive babies.

In the case involving the Dallas baby, the question that arose was whether Mrs. Bledsoe had exceeded her authority by calling for his immediate removal from the home. An earlier visit by a caseworker had found that the boy was flourishing under the care of the foster parent.

A report filed after that visit said the lesbian couple ''appear to be very committed to each other and have a relationship based on respect and love.'' Mrs. Bledsoe said she thought it totally inappropriate that the state would condone the practice.

''There are two women involved, and the boy is guaranteed not to ever have a father'' if he remains with them, she said. ''My responsibility is to do the best I can for him, and this is not the best I can do.''

Mrs. Bledsoe, who is married and has a 25-year-old son, said she was shocked to find herself overruled and then reprimanded. But Ms. Edwards, the child welfare agency spokeswoman, said Mrs. Bledsoe's effort to remove the boy from the foster mother's home was a clear violation of agency guidelines.

To justify such a decision, ''There needs to be immediate risk of harm to the child,'' Ms. Edwards said. ''Did this case meet that need? No, not in our opinion. The child was getting very good care.''